I may not know a lot about gardening, but one thing is certain – I’m dreading the maturation of summer peas and their farewell to shootdom. Come back, babies!

Something like that.

Pre-baked

Cue intro: Spring’s shoots joins forces with a renewed enthusiasm for bread-making, thanks to an incredibly long-awaited purchase of a new dough hook for the old family Kitchen Aid. Much thanks to my sister for shipping it from New York.

Pea Shoot Pizza

Toppings:

cherry tomatoes

miso tofu ricotta (recipe from: Vegan with a Vengeance, plus an additional tablespoon of nutritional yeast and two tablespoons of mellow white miso]

Preheat oven to 475F. Briefly roast a head garlic, as desired, and remove before 20 minutes are up. Stick it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it again. Roll out your dough, thinly, and brush with olive oil. Toss the whole cherry tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil and set aside. Dollop large spoonfuls of tofu ricotta on the pie. In a separate pan, and you can do this much earlier, heat the minced garlic, if using, in a teaspoon of olive oil, and saute the pea shoots until quickly wilted. Carefully dish the pea shoots until the pizza. Add the cherry tomatoes, whole cloves of roasted garlic (save any extra for another day, or smash and serve on the side), yet another drizzle of olive oil, and salt. Bake for 15-20 minutes until slight golden browning on the edges is achieved.

Like this:

The night the pea shoots came to dinner was a very good night, indeed.

Pea shoots are wonderful. The flavor is just so damn…fresh. I picked up a bunch from my weekly trip the farmers market last weekend, and while my first thought was to serve them fresh with lemon juice on top of beet burgers, I ended up sauteing them, yet again, and the result was lovely.

It was one of those casual, homemade meals, that I swear, can make your evening. It had been some times since I had made pasta – let alone, traditional (and beloved) white pasta – and on top of that, it was a clean-out-the-fridge meal that utilized two farmers market purchases: the sun-dried tomatoes I picked up in Eugene last month, and the aforementioned pea shoots. Inspiration, am I right?

Here’s the gist:

Saute four cloves of minced garlic in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, add 3 ounces of sun-dried (truly dried) tomatoes, a pinch of sea salt and a dash of pepper – I used freshly ground white. Add enough white wine to cover and bring to a boil. Stir in a teaspoon of white miso, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, half a tablespoon of Earth Balance, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced. Had it been two months ahead, I would have thrown in some cherry tomatoes.

Boil water for pasta – I used capellini, which cooks in under 3 minutes. Immediately after you put the pasta in to cook, saute 3 cloves of thinly sliced garlic in a little bit of olive oil in a separate pan, and stir in washed pea shoots. I find the long pieces classier, for whatever reason, and enjoy that delusion, but feel free to cut them. Add a splash of water or white wine or broth, stir, and cover until wilted. At this point, your pasta is likely done, so drain it, toss it with the sauce as desired, and plate over wilted pea shoots, making sure to include the garlic. I served this dish with nooch on the side, but didn’t find it calling for any. What I did enjoy was a chilled glass of white, of course.

Let’s do this.

The final plate was garnished with nothing more than fresh, flat-leaf parsley.